MOSCOW, May 15 (Xinhua) -- Russia launched a cargo spacecraft on Thursday to the International Space Station atop a carrier rocket.

    The Progress M-14 spaceship is to deliver some 2.5 tons of food, water, fuel, equipment and gifts from the ISS crews' families.

    Russian cosmonauts Sergei Volkov and Oleg Kononenko and NASA astronaut Garrett E. Reisman are working on the space station.

    The spacecraft is to dock to the station at 01:37 Moscow time on Saturday (1737 GMT), Itar-Tass news agency cited sources in the Russian Space Agency.

    The Progress spacecraft is an unmanned version of the Soyuz spacecraft. It is expected to be filled with waste and burst during its way back to Earth after undocking.

    The Progress is one of two cargo types of spacecraft supplying the ISS. The other is the European Space Agency's automatic transfer vehicle (ATV), the Jules Verne.